


That which we never could have known

by shiftingsands



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I don't know what I'm doing, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Relationships may be subject to change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18726712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiftingsands/pseuds/shiftingsands
Summary: The war did not end with the battle of Hogwarts. It was long. Painful. And to those who could take a moment to think amidst the death and destruction, pointless.Harry was tired, so he went back.(In which Harry travels back and meets a young Tom Riddle. It’s a long, hard road, but at least Draco will be there with him.)





	1. It all started like this...

“Where will you go?” Draco asks. There’s a deep tiredness to his voice. A resignation to a long war he never wanted to be a part of (no matter what side he stood on) but fights endlessly for anyways.

Sometimes he wonders why. Maybe for his father, killed by the Dark Lord. Maybe for his mother, desperately trying to keep her son safe even as he fights from the front lines. Maybe for this man in front of him, who seems so far away even when he’s right in front of him.

Harry looks at his friend. The pureblood heir that he’d never think to call close as a brother in the entirety of his lifetime.

“Back. Back to before this all started.” He says it calmly, as if he hadn’t spent weeks agonizing over it. 

To go back years, decades, to the root of it all.

_ ‘Harry,’ said the deep, rattling, rasping voice of Death. You think in straight paths and lines. Know that you can now transcend the confines of space and time. You have all of eternity at hand. Go back to 1981? You could do so much more. _

Draco, however, knew nothing of this.

“How? Where? Harry you’re not making any sense,” He says with a hint of desperation in his voice. This was the boy who lived. The champion of the light. How could he just  _ leave _ ?

Harry knew what he was leaving behind; A war-torn magical world, thousands of witches and wizards looking to him for guidance, looking for him to lead them against Voldemort and his cruel reign, and two best friends- one six months pregnant- both hidden away by Fidelius like an eerie echo of his parents.

But what could he tell him? How could he explain.

“Will you go with me?” Green eyes stare into silver. There's a vulnerability in those eyes that Draco hadn’t seen in a long time. War had hardened him, but behind those walls was the same hurt and scared child from many years ago.

Draco says nothing.

“Come with me,”  _ I don’t want to be alone _ .

Without fully knowing, Draco understood.

“Let’s go.”

So they went.

 

\--

 

“ _ Travel back to the 1930s?! _ Are you insane?” Draco exclaims. He might have agreed to join Harry but this, this was madness!

Harry looks at him with endless patience.

“Just trust me. Please. I  _ can _ do it.”

In the safety of one of the Malfoys’ safe houses, the two discuss their plan.

Draco lets out a long sigh.

“I know I said I’d join you, but… my mother,” He says quietly.

Harry looks down at his lap.

“I know, it was a selfish request and I understand if you-” Draco cuts him off before he can finish.

“No. Stop that. Stop blaming yourself for trying to make things right.” It’s quiet for a moment before he continues.

“I just… we need to prepare first. We can’t just up and go, we need to decide what what to do, where to go, what will even happen to, to all  _ this _ when we’re gone? Harry what the hell are you  _ thinking _ ?”

He gives a wry smile.

“If you want the full story, we’ll be here for a while.”

Draco sighs- again- he’s being doing that a lot lately.

“Winky!” With a crack, a house elf appears next to the coffee table.

“What can Winky do for Masters Harry and Malfoy?”

“Bring us some tea, please,” She practically glows. 

“Yes Master Malfoy!” 

Soon steam is swirling up from two porcelain cups. It’s only 8 at night, but Harry feels very, very tired.

“It all starts with a boy named Tom Riddle…”

 

\--

 

As Hogwarts sleeps, a lone pair of feet wanders its halls. Dark, perfectly curled hair, high cheekbones, and an elegant hand gripping a yew wand so tightly it seemed that it could snap with the slightest increase in pressure.

‘Damn that old man…’ 

Tom Riddle roams the castle with the restlessness of a hungry basilisk. Venomous and seething, desperate for answers in pages he’d already searched. ‘It has to  _ somewhere _ , it must be… Perhaps the headmaster’s office? It’s the only place I haven’t been able to properly search.’

He feels a burning in his chest. It must be the calling of his birthright. ‘ _ It must _ .’

Somewhere, two figures stumble into an empty, decrepit street.

No one knows it, but a distant future shatters.


	2. Better Be...

“Grindelwald, you say? Oh you poor boys, have a seat, have a seat,” Says Headmaster Dippet as he conjures up two chairs. Flashing a look at each other, the two sit down.

“Now, I hate to bring back bad memories, but I’ll have to ask you to explain exactly what happened.”

“I- we,” Despite going over their cover story over and over, Harry still finds himself tripping up over his words. Thank Merlin Draco is there.

“You see, Headmaster, we’re actually both orphans. We lived together in the same orphanage until we met an old wizarding couple who decided to take us in. They were so good to us, but… secretive. They never even told us their last names, letting us keep ours,” Draco begins in the most pitiful and woe-be-gone voice Harry had ever heard. Thank  _ Merlin _ he’s here.

“We were always moving from place to place. We never really knew why, until the attacks started. We were always running and hiding and then...” He trails off. 

“And then one day there was nowhere else to run.”

Harry knows he isn’t acting anymore. He can feel his nails digging into the palms of his hands. ‘ _ It’ll be different this time. _ ’

“So after… after they were killed to let us escape, we went here. From what we heard, Hogwarts is the safest place to be.”

Dippet, clearly moved, nodded his head emphatically.

“You boys heard right. You won’t have to worry about a thing now, I can promise you that you’ll be safe in these walls,” He says, giving them what appeared to be a comforting smile which Harry awkwardly returned.

“Hm… It seems we’ll have to put you in a separate room from the dorms from the way things are working out…” He mutters to himself.

“Ah! Before I forget, what are your last names?” 

...Shit. They hadn’t thought of that.

“I’m Evans and he’s Dursley,” Harry blurts out before Draco can say a thing.

“All right then, Mr. Evans, Mr. Dursley, let’s get you sorted, shall we?”

 

\--

 

News about Grindelwald cover the front page of the Daily Prophet. “ _ Series of attacks leave muggle communities devastated _ ” and “ _ Dark Wizards and Darker Times _ ” are among a few of the headlines. 

Tom scoffs in his head. For all the ministry’s talk of ‘security measures’ and the like, it’s clear that Grindelwald is capable of much more than they could handle. 

_ Though I could have done much better… _

“...Is that the sorting hat?” He hears Avery ask. Looking up, there is indeed the beaten up hat sitting on a short stool at the end of the dining hall. But before he can ponder as to why, the Headmaster stands up and calls the students to attention. Dippet is a wizened old man, his hat slightly crooked on his head making him look more a fool than he really is.

“Students! I have an,  _ unusual _ announcement to make this morning. Due to unfortunate circumstances, we are fortunate enough to welcome two new students to Hogwarts. They are adopted brothers who were previously homeschooled and will now be joining us for their fifth year, so I would ask that you all help them to adjust to their new life at Hogwarts. That being said, please welcome Draco Dursley and Harry Evans!”

There’s a ripple of excitement as the doors to the great hall open to reveal two figures. To the right is a tall boy with blond hair and silver-grey eyes. He walks like an entitled pureblood heir, but his last name gives him away as a half-blood at best. Tom’s eyes flicker to Abraxas, two seats down.

To the left is a much shorter, much messier boy. His dark hair looks like it’d never seen a brush before, and his stride is unmistakably Griffyndorish, but… 

Avada kedavra eyes lock onto his for a fraction of a second, and there’s a complicated look in them before he looks away and marches towards the Headmaster. What a strange boy.

“Well then, Draco, why don’t we have you go first?” The blond nods and picks up the worn hat with barely disguised distaste before sitting down and placing it on his head. The other boy, Harry, stands awkwardly to the side as he watches his brother with what appears to be anxiousness on his face.

“He looks like a Ravenclaw,” Says Mulciber, “the stuck up bastards.”

“Who knows, he could be a Slytherin,” Counters Black.

Dolohov snorts. 

“Are you deaf?  _ Dursley _ , he said. He’s obviously a mudblood.”

The statement starts up a whole new debate, and Tom is getting tired of their loudness this early in the morning.

“Now gentlemen, I’m sure the sorting hat will work him out. And I’d advise you not to use such  _ foul _ language so early in the morning,” He says cooly. Immediately, everyone shuts up. Though, this sorting was taking some time.

The blonde boy’s composure is slowly beginning to waver as the minutes roll by, and then finally,

“Hmph, fine then, better be… SLYTHERIN!” 

A triumphant smile forms on his face as he takes a place at the end of their table. There’s a light applause, but clearly the house doesn’t know what to make of their new member yet. Homeschooled, the Headmaster had said. He wonders how much of that story was true.

Next his  _ him _ , the strange one with the vibrant green eyes. There’s a fierce determination shining in them. He’d bet a galleon that he’s a Gryffindor through and through, but then the sorting hat shouts,

“SLYTHERIN!”

 

\-- 

 

“So how’s it feel to be a slimy snake?” His best friend whispers smugly, clearly enjoying his suffering.

“Shut up I’ll kill you.”

“I should be the one killing  _ you _ .  _ Dursley _ ,” He hisses, “you gave me your awful muggle relative’s name.”

“Well what else was I supposed to do?” He whispers back

“I couldn’t think of anything else I swear!”

Draco rolls his eyes but shuts up as someone walks towards them. It’s a weedy boy with a nasty look in his eye.

“Dursley and Evans, right?” He asks, a slight sneer in his voice but nothing outright provocative. Harry still wants to punch him in the face.

“Just Draco,” His best friend interjects, “anything but Dursley.”

“Sure, Draco, whatever.” He says flippantly, “Anyways, I'm Evan Rosier, and my friend Tom Riddle is one of the prefects for Slytherin- you know what a prefect is right?”

“We do,” Harry says dryly. 

“Perfect. Just let him know if you need any,  _ help _ . He wanted me to let you know that he hopes we can all be good friends in the future.”

Draco gives the fakest smile Harry’s ever seen.

“We’ll keep that in mind,” He says, and Rosier takes that as his cue to walk away.

“... I told you your house is full of prats.”

“It’s  _ your _ house too now, idiot. And besides, it’s best that we’re in the same house. Especially with  _ him _ ,” He reasons, and Harry supposes that he’s right.

“I still think we could’ve done just fine in Gryffindor,” Draco tenses ever so slightly at that. Harry smirks.

From the far end of the table, a pair of dark eyes watches them.

“Keep an eye on them, something about their story doesn’t sit right with me,” He says.  _ Harry Evans… _ Hatred. That’s what that look was.

A smile pulls at his lips, and his followers shudder when they see it. Nothing good ever happens when their lord smiles like  _ that _ .

It seems that this year would be much more interesting than he expected.

**Author's Note:**

> No promises for whether or not I'm actually going to finish this fic, but I'll give it my best shot. Comments are always appreciated!


End file.
